I was completely at a loss. What weird kind of act was this? My God, was it a cult — were they going to try to recruit me? No, no way — not Kit, my oldest friend!

Well, best find out the worst of it straight off. “So who or what is this ‘Miriam’?” I said, trying not to sound sarcastic. “A Priestess from Atlantis? An Indian Princess? An angel?”

Jennifer smiled soothingly at me, as if I were the nutty one. “Nothing like that. Miriam is a whole batch of souls who’ve finished their earthly incarnations and have come back together as one non-physical entity.”

I said, “Oh.” Surely there were intelligent questions to ask, but for the life of me I couldn’t think of any.

Jennifer added, “According to Miriam, we all go through these phases. Their job now, in this new stage of their own evolution, is to teach us, if we’re open to learning.”

“Nice of them,” I mumbled. I couldn’t get over it: Jennifer presented this stuff like someone explaining which subway to take to Brooklyn Heights.

“And the name of this, um, entity is ‘Miriam’?” I managed to stop short of asking, “Miriam what? Miriam Gross? Miriam Makeba?”

“Well, not exactly,” Jennifer said. “It doesn’t really have a name, and it’s not ‘him’ or ‘her’ any more. One of the first questions we asked was what we should call them, and they answered, ‘Anything you like.’ So Kit named them after her favorite piano teacher.

“More wine?”
I had more wine.